


You are Safe in my Heart

by wecara



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, IB Catneylang on instagram, M/M, RMS Titanic, Titanic AU, based on art, minor smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-07 07:22:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wecara/pseuds/wecara
Summary: Keith lives life in luxury while his heart cries out in pain.Lance lifes life in rags while his heart rejoyces in his freedom.The RMS Titanic has room enough for both.And when they collide, sparks are bound to fly.





	1. Chains

**Author's Note:**

> I’m writing this by the script, and I’m not watching the movie alongside it, so it won’t be identical to the events of the movie! I wanted to write my own sort of interpretation of the movie like I’m a director of a separate movie. The imagery will not be the same, the emotions and thoughts will not be the same, some of the scenes will not be the same, not even the words will be the same as I need to edit somewhat in order to match the context of my scenes! So pls don’t nitpick if this doesn’t align perfectly with your vision of the movie Titanic. Besides, I think it’s more fun that way :) Who would want to read a word-for-word copy of the movie with nothing but the characters’ names changed?
> 
> ALSO! This is loosely based on/inspired by Catneylang’s art for this AU! Please check out her art it’s so amazing and makes me cry :,)

It’s been 84 years, and Keith can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used, the sheets had never been slept in. The _Titanic_ was brand new and glistening in the morning light the first time he saw it, the windows of the portholes glossy as if they’d just been shined moments ago.

And yet, disembarking the carriage beside his brother and his fiance, dressed in the finest lavender silk money could buy and wearing a hat of the gaudiest white peacock plumage, Keith feels nothing but disinterest and mild contempt for the voyage ahead.

The man with whom he is engaged glances down at Keith—he hates being looked _down_ at, even with the tall black boots he still falls many inches short of the goliath man—and Keith doesn’t miss the way his dark eyes flash with the infuriating need to impress. His fiance is most certainly waiting for some sort of jaw-dropping, brain-dizzying reaction to the regal ship, and knowing this, Keith is eager to disappoint.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It doesn’t look any bigger than the _Sincline,_ ” he remarks cooly, making sure his fiance sees the noncommittal way he shrugs his shoulders and cocks his head, as if grimly observing a pathetic street dog’s waddling gait rather than the most famous (not to mention most expensive) boat in all the world.

Keith suppresses a smirk upon hearing the man beside him sigh a great huff of exasperation.

“You can be blase about some things, Keith, but not about _Titanic._ It’s over a hundred feet longer than _Sincline,_ and far more luxurious…” the man prattles on for a few more moments as he extends a hand to help Keith’s brother out of the carriage. Shiro ignores the hand, choosing instead to leap down from the step and land gracefully onto the dock floor beneath, knees bending ever-so-slightly and emphasizing the feline-like agility training he’d been through in the years leading up to him becoming the heir of their family’s company.

“Your brother is much too hard to impress, Shirogane,” Keith’s fiance sighs, arm still outstretched and neglected for Shiro. “Watch your step,” he adds sarcastically.

“Watch your own, good Zarkon,” Shiro calls back playfully before clapping a hand onto Keith’s shoulder, leaving Zarkon a few paces behind and glancing suspiciously at the blackened docks covered in poor civilians looking to watch as the famous ship takes its maiden voyage.

“So this is the ship they say is unsinkable,” Shiro murmurs up at the _Titanic,_ expression unreadable.

“God himself couldn’t sink this ship,” Zarkon interjects, his deep voice dripping with the pride of a host providing a special experience.

Shiro’s butler hurries out from the carriage moments later, carrying Shiro’s personal necessities in two briefcases, one on each arm. The sandy-haired man doesn’t appear to be strained at all by the luggage, but he does squint his eyes and furrow his brow in concentration at the pair of silver spectacles slipping dangerously down the bridge of his nose, as if trying to will them back to their proper place through mind power alone.

Almost without thought, Shiro reaches over and pushes them back up for the butler—Adam, Keith remembers—whose cheeks go a deep cherry at the gesture. Keith would think nothing of it if he didn’t notice the slight pinking of his brother’s ears as well.

 _Oh?_ Keith thinks, raising an eyebrow at Shiro upon catching his eye. His brother’s steely eyes cut into his own, and he mouths sharply, _later._ Keith snorts and nods, making a mental note to not let Shiro forget about it.

Keith’s maid—a stoic woman not much younger than Keith himself but almost two inches taller—follows behind Adam with Keith’s much larger bags, and Keith once again rolls his eyes at the excessiveness of it all. The bags the personal servants carry are only supposed to be their “necessities” in case all the other luggage is delayed in being delivered to their rooms, and Keith has been forced by his fiance’s lavish habits to push _far_ past the limit of “necessity.” He sighs regretfully at their bulk and shoots Acxa an apologetic grimace, and she shrugs microscopically, then lifts the bags up over her shoulders as if she merely carries bags of feathers. With her strength, Keith doesn’t doubt the ease with which she totes his bags, but he still can’t help but feel burdensome.

Last to exit the carriage is Zarkon’s valet, who gives Keith the chills. She looks to be tens of thousands of years old, dressed in dark, draping clothing that makes her appear much like a witch. Even her name—Haggar—sounds like something straight from Hansel and Gretel. Keith shivers and turns back to the bustling dock as a harried-looking porter scurries up to them, his pale face sheening with sweat even in the chill spring air.

“Sir, you’ll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way—” his nervous requests are cut short as Zarkon hands the porter a ridiculously thick wad of cash. Keith rolls his eyes—that’s the reason his fiance dwarfs everyone around him, he’s padded his clothing with currency!

The porter’s eyes go wide and his jaw drops down to the floor.

“I put my faith in you, good sir,” Zarkon all but sneers as the porter, still in shock, looks about them with his mouth still hanging open. Zarkon pivots and holds his arm out to Haggar. “See my valet.”

“Y-Yes sir, my pleasure, sir,” the porter stammers.

“These trunks here, and 12 more in the Daimler. We’ll have all this lot up in the rooms,” Haggar croons to the stricken-looking porter, who then whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby. They come running and begin unloading the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second carriage behind their passenger car, including wooden crates and a steel safe. Keith turns his eyes away from the ridiculous circus-show of wealth and back to his fiance’s satisfied face. Zarkon never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses.

“We’d better hurry, then. This way,” Zarkon commands, holding one arm out to the first class gangway—an elevated boarding bridge about twenty feet above them made to avoid the smelly press of the dockside crowd—and curling one towards Keith for him to take. Begrudgingly, he does.

They weave between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying second-class passengers and well-wishers. Keith allows himself to get lost in the feeling of being tugged through the thick throng of people, almost relishing in the dirt and grit of it all knowing what stuffy gold-plated environment waits for him inside. Out here, he can actually feel like a real person rather than some done-up doll.

Suddenly, Zarkon is knocked back into Keith by two steerage boys who shove past them, shouting and laughing. He’s knocked back a second time by the boys’ father, who shouts a quick “Sorry squire!” over his shoulder at them before continuing on his pursuit of the rowdy boys.

“Steerage swine. Apparently missed their annual bath,” Zarkon snarls before moving forward once more.

“Honestly, Zarkon, if you weren’t forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like this,” Shiro reprimands, much to Zarkon’s annoyance if the subtle tightening of his hold on Keith’s wrist is anything to go by.

“All part of my charm, Shirogane,” he says with a forced smile. “At any rate, it was my darling fiancee’s beauty rituals which made us late.”

Keith scowls darkly. “You told me to change!”

“I couldn’t let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It’s bad luck!” Zarkon drawls, the false honey in his voice almost sickening. Keith wants to bite back that all sorts of things on ships are bad luck and that silly superstitions don’t stop the hordes of snobbish powdered women from stepping aboard, but one look at his travel-weary brother has him holding his tongue.

“I felt like black,” he mutters angrily.

“You always feel like black,” Shiro teases, and Keith shoots a sharp elbow into his brother’s rib.

“Here I’ve pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites, and you act as if you’re going to your execution!” Zarkon sighs angrily, pulling Keith out of the way of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with wooden cases labeled OXFORD MARMALADE.

Keith’s fiance guides the group to the gangway to the D Deck doors as the _Titanic_ ’s hull looms over them, a great iron wall that cuts across the freedom of the horizon. It seems like a terrible sort of symbol to Keith—his whole life stretches ahead of his 17 year old perspective the same way the ocean stretches into the sky, but something cold, hard, and chillingly wealthy blots all of that from view. Something tall and scary and insanely powerful. Something that Keith would rather do anything than be wedded to.

To everyone else, it truly is the ship of dreams. But to Keith, it feels like a death sentence. 

 

The pub was far from godliness in all its grimy glamor. The very air Lance breathed appeared yellow from the shimmering flakes of dust ricocheting off every surface. Cigarette smoke travels through the space in thick grey whorls, sticking to his nose and lungs like tree sap. The room is crowded with bodies—mostly dockworkers and and ship crew taking a break gambling and drinking before their maritime duties call them back out to sea.

Lance thumbs over his cards, brows furrowing as he tries his best to focus over the commotion. His two best friends sit on either side of him, their faces scrunched similarly as they shuffle their cards and order them by value and suit. Their hair us unbrushed, their clothes are crumpled from sleeping in them. To his right, a bulky Samoan aptly named for his size and strength, Hunk. To his left, a petite 18 year old girl with her short, cropped hair tucked into a newsboy cap. Her amber eyes are sharp with wit and mischief, and despite her size, she passes easily for a scrawny young boy. Lance had met Hunk in the underbelly of a cargo ship headed from Mexico to France, both of them stowaways. They clicked almost instantly, and had been best friends ever since.

Pidge had come along a bit later, Lance had almost been run over by her bike while she was out doing her paper route in the cobbled streets of Roubaix. Kicked out of university for reasons she wouldn’t say, she’d been just barely getting by when Lance and Hunk added her to their little ragtag group about a year ago.

Across the table from the three of them are two massive Swedes, thickly arguing over their cards. Lance has picked up some Swedish here and there, but Pidge (ever the young genius) is fluent in it, along with twelve other languages. She leans over to Lance, a wicked grin on her face.

“Brown vest is angry that white tank-top bet their tickets, they don’t sound happy about their hand,” she snickers, and Lance tosses her a smirk before tilting his head and holding his hand out to the one in the white tank top, hovering just over the pile of bills from four different countries and the three 3rd class tickets for the RMS _Titanic._

“Hit me again, big guy,” he says jauntily, and takes the card he’s given. His eyes are stone, betraying nothing. Hunk licks his lips as he nervously refuses a card. From out the window, Lance hears the unsinkable ship’s whistle blow.

“Final warning,” Pidge murmurs at the sound, and Lance nods.

“The moment of truth boys. Somebody’s life is about to change,” Lance announces, and Hunk lays down his cards, followed by Pidge and the two Swedes. Lance holds his own cards close to his body as he peers around the table. “Let’s see… Hunk’s got _niente._ Brown vest, you’ve got squat. Tank top, uh oh…” Lance shakes his head, and the man in the tank top perks up a bit. “Two pair… mmm…” He looks sadly down at his own cards, then turns to Pidge and winces.

“Sorry guys,” he apologizes, and Hunk’s eyes go wide.

“What sorry? What you got? Lance, I swear to God if you lost my money—”

“You’re not gonna see your mama again for a long time,” Lance sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose apologetically as Hunk grows more frantic. Pidge claws at Lance’s hands, trying to yank his fingers away from his breasted cards. Lance bats her off then slaps his hand down onto the table, grinning. “Cause you’re goin’ to America! Full house boys!”

“Sweet quiznak!” Hunk cries as Pidge leaps into the air, fists pumping. Lance opens up his satchel and rakes the money and the tickets into it, grinning at the stricken-looking Swedes.

“Sorry boys, three of a kind and a pair. I’m high and you’re dry and we’re going to…”

“AMERICA!” Pidge, Hunk, and Lance cry together, and Pidge leaps onto Lance’s back as he begins to dance around.

The man in the brown vest balls up one of his huge farmer’s fists, face going purple. For a moment, Lance’s heartbeat picks up with fear at the murderous look on the burly man’s face. He can get his way through a fight just fine—he’s a quick dodger and a heavy puncher—but he doesn’t want to lose the tickets or miss the boat. But then the Swede turns to his cousin and swings, clobbering white tank top dead in the face. He shouts in rapidfire Swedish as Pidge’s cheering swells in Lance’s ears. He shrugs her off onto Hunk, pulling the tickets from his bag and kissing them.

“Goin’ home… to the land o’ the free and the home of the real hot-dogs!” He cries. “And on the _Titanic_ no less! We’re ridin’ in high style now! We’re practically goddamned royalty!”

“It’s destiny, Hunk! I’m gonna go to America and be a millionaire!” Pidge squeals. Hunk grabs the pubkeeper’s shoulders and shakes him gleefully.

“We’re going to America!” Hunk bellows into the poor old man’s face, his scruffy grey mustache scrunching up to his nose.

“No, mate. The _Titanic_ is going to America. In five minutes.”

“Shit! Come on Pigeon!” Lance leaps over a table and gathers Hunk’s bag and Pidge’s massive trenchcoat from their chairs and begins maneuvering around the remaining drunken sailors. “Come on!”

Lance sprints to the fresh blue light coming from the open door to the pub, turning back to the grimy scene one last time with a grin. Pidge and Hunk scurry past him, grabbing their things from his arms.

“Fellas, it’s been grand,” Lance says, then runs for the door and out towards the ship that holds his next adventure.

Behind them, the pubkeeper huffs and straightens his sleeves, crumpled from Hunk’s excited manhandling. “Course I’m sure if they knew it was you lot comin’ they’d be pleased to wait,” he grumbles, then continues about his duties wiping down the dirty counter with an even dirtier cloth.


	2. Winds

Carrying everything they own in the world in the satchels on their shoulders, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge sprint towards the pier, tearing through the milling crowds next to the terminal. Behind them, milling gentlemen shout things—particularly regarding the color of his and Hunk’s skin, which makes Lance go livid—as they jostle past them. They dodge piles of luggage and weave through groups of people waving and smiling up at their family members and friends on the balconies of the ship. Pidge gets through just fine, ducking under bags and crawling through peoples’ legs at the speed of a lizard, and Lance isn’t having that hard of a time slipping around through the gaps people leave between strangers. He’d learned long ago the art of fluidity, slipping through life like water through a stream. 

Hunk, unfortunately, in his brawny bulk, would have an easier time simply steamrolling through the crowds if not for his infuriating politeness. Each time he so much as breathes onto another person, he stops and apologizes excessively. Lance doesn’t let him get too far behind, though, as he has no qualms with pushing past scruffy old men and shouldering headstrong young sailors to forge a path for his teddy bear friend. 

Finally they burst through the cloud of people and out onto the pier as Lance feels his footing come to a dead stop. His neck cranes up at the cast wall of the ship’s hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long. The  _ Titanic  _ is monstrous. 

Hunk and Pidge sprint past him, up the third class gangway aft at E deck, but Lance remains still, gawking up at the massive ship. All of a sudden, he feels the world beneath his feet grow vast. He’s lived on his own since he was fifteen, and had to learn to make himself big enough to survive the big world. Being little and insignificant wasn’t an option for Lance, he wasn’t allowed to be trampled over or lost. Survival meant sticking up for himself, because who the hell else would do it?

But now, under the shadow of the grandest ship in history, fifteen feet from the gangplank that would ship him across the vast Atlantic and onto the soil of the Big Apple, Lance remembers how it had felt those first few months after running away. He remembers how to feel small.

Then suddenly he’s being grabbed by each wrist and yanked up the ramp, with Pidge shouting angrily in his ear for him to “hurry your ass up, they’re already detaching the gangplank and if I have to make you carry me over the gap  _ I fucking will _ , _ ”  _ and he’s brought back from his minor disassociation into the wild world in front of him. 

Lance yanks the tickets from his satchel and shoves them into the sixth officer’s face upon reaching the top of the gangplank, leaning over the gap so half his body dangles over the gentle yet icy ocean thirty feet below. It’s still in the beginnings of spring, Lance would hate to slip and end up soaked in that chilly water.

“Wait! We’re passengers!” he cries, flushed and panting. The officer narrows his eyes at the three of them.

“Have you been through the inspection queue?” he asks cynically. 

“Of course!” Lance lies cheerfully. The officer doesn’t look so convinced. 

“Anyway, we don’t have lice, we’re Americans!” Pidge interjects, dropping the false British accent she had adopted to fit in with the locals of their perch back when they first moved to London and replacing it with a flawless American one. She glances back at her friends, both of which look far from the stereotypical white citizens of the United States. “All of us.”

The officer purses his lips testily. “Right. Come aboard then,” he steps aside and Lance jumps easily over the gap and onto the ship. Hunk lifts Pidge onto his shoulder and leaps across, albeit clumsier than Lance’s graceful practiced glide, but effective nonetheless. Lance hands the tickets to another officer off to one side as the first finishes detaching the gangway behind them, cutting the ship off from its last tie back to the land. 

The other officer inspects the tickets. “Gundersen. And…” he glances up at Lance and Hunk, then back to Pidge. “Three Gundersens,” he scoffs with thinly veiled sarcasm.

“We’re adopted,” Lance replies breezily, ignoring the officer’s insulting tone. Then he grabs Hunk’s arm and pulls him and Pidge down the white-painted corridor. “Come on, Sven!”

“We’re the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!” Pidge shouts. The three of them whoop with victory, grinning ear-to-ear as they shove past other third-class passengers up the stairs to the aft well deck. They run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck, and when they get to the rail Lance leaps up onto it and starts waving frantically at the cheering crowd decorating the pier. 

“You know somebody?” Hunk asks, peering over the rail and squinting at the faces too far down to make out clearly. 

“Of course not. That’s not the point,” Lance responds flippantly, then turns back to the crowd. “Goodbye! Goodbye!! I’ll miss you!”

Hunk grins and throws Pidge onto his shoulders as they both wave and cheer over the crowd, adding their voice to the swell of others and feeling the exhilaration of the moment. 

“Goodbye! I’ll never forget you!” Hunk bellows loud enough for the other passengers around them to falter for a second before going back to waving to their loved ones waiting on the pier. Hunk’s face goes bright red and Lance loses control of himself laughing, finally toppling off the rail and onto the glossy wooden flooring beneath them, basking in the warm glow of the sun and new beginnings. 

Once the  _ Titanic  _ retreats far enough from the coast that they can’t make out anything more than a gentle black smudge, Pidge tugs on Hunk’s sleeve and points to the stairwell to get down to their rooms.

“It’s gonna get crowded down there once all these people stop feeling bittersweet over their departure,” she explains.

“Yeah, Pidge is right, Lance. C’mon, get off the floor. Let’s head to the berths,” Hunk orders, and Lance groans, wiping his face. Then, taking one last breath of the crisp sea air, he takes the hand Hunk offers and slips down the stairs and into the stuffy hallway. 

As opposed to the tranquil serenity above deck, the labyrinth of doors and corridors is filled with total confusion as people argue over luggage in several languages or wander, perplexed and looking up the words on doors in phrase books. Finally they find their door and slip inside, where two guys similar in appearance to the Swedes in the pub already occupy two of the eight bunks. The room is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with exposed pipes overhead. It smells of fresh paint and chemicals, and it has a slight chill to it. A single porthole on the side wall casts crisp sunlight over the room. 

Lance throws his satchel onto one of the bottom bunks, and Pidge scurries up to the top one. Hunk settles heavily onto the bunk beside Lance, groaning and cracking his back. 

One of the Swedes asks the other something, and Pidge sits up in her bunk, smiling sweetly at the puzzled-looking men. One opens his mouth to speak, but Pidge interrupts them, speaking in rapid-fire Mandarin. Each time one of the Swedes try to speak, she interrupts them, until finally they give up. It’s quite an entertaining sight, and Lance has to struggle to keep a straight face. 

Once it’s all over, Lance lies with his hands behind his head, gazing at the wooden underbelly of the top bunk above him. His face splits into a stupid grin for the upteenth time today as he feels the sway of the water beneath their fantastic ship. If this isn’t luxury, he doesn’t know what is. 

 

“That’s good, thank you,” Keith says politely to the room service waiter who pours champagne for him into a tulip glass of orange juice. The waiter hands the glass to Keith, who takes it and sips it absentmindedly, absorbed with his new paintings. He flips through the canvases, admiring the Monet of water lilies and the Degas of dancers. There are a few abstract ones in there too, which he likes the best. They’re meant to express nothing but emotions—something Keith himself has been taught to suppress in the name of manners. 

“Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money,” Zarkon scoffs from the covered 50 foot promenade deck outside, decorated by potted trees and vines on the trellises. Keith rolls his eyes from the sitting room, far from where his fiance could see. 

“You’re wrong. They’re fascinating, like in a dream…” Keith sighs. “There’s truth without logic. What’s his name again?” he holds up a cubist portrait and squints at the signature scrawled in the bottom right corner. “Picasso.”

Zarkon stands from his deck chair and walks into the sitting room to get a better look at the painting. His hooked nose scrunches up with distaste. “He’ll never amount to a thing, trust me,” he all but growls. “At least they were cheap.”

A porter wheels Zarkon’s private safe into the room on a handtruck and Zarkon steps away from Keith to tell him where to put it. Keith breathes a sigh of relief at the distance between them, then picks up the cubist portrait and carries it into the bedroom. He sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Acxa is already there, hanging up some of Keith’s many articles of clothing. The walls are a deep maroon with golden swirling wallpaper, garnished by warm mahogany furniture and elaborate gold light fixtures. Potted plants watered daily by the maids are placed beside windows overlooking the bright, open sea, adding a splash of color to the stuffy scent and sight of wealth. 

“It smells so brand new,” Acxa says to Keith, turning and bowing to him as he walks in. “Like they built it all just for us.”

“Yeah, pretty ridiculous, isn’t it,” Keith sighs. 

“Just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I’ll be the first,” Acxa continues, ignoring Keith’s pessimism. 

“And when I crawl between Keith’s sheets tonight, I’ll still be the first,” comes Zarkon’s deep, velvety voice from the hallway, sending a shiver down Keith’s spine. He doesn’t turn to face him, instead remains standing beside the bed, gazing at the Picasso.

“Excuse me,” Acxa says quietly, then exits the room, closing the door with a soft  _ click.  _ Keith curses under his breath—he’d hoped not to be alone with his fiance as much as possible despite the unfortunately committed nature of their relationship. Acxa isn’t the type to back down without a reason, though, especially given their relationship as friends rather than that between a master and his maid. Zarkon must’ve pointedly dismissed her, the thought of which only serves to make Keith more angry. 

Big, muscular hands snake down Keith’s back and then around his waist, pulling him back into his fiance’s massive chest. The sharp scent of his cologne stings Keith’s nose, and Zarkon lowers his face into the crook of Keith’s neck, his warm breath and chapped kisses causing Keith to gag microscopically. 

“The first and only,” Zarkon growls possessively. 

Keith swallows and his stomach drops, heavy like a stone. A catch in his throat keeps him from responding, so Zarkon fills the silence. 

“Forever.”

 

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon as Pidge, Hunk, and Lance stand right at the bow, gripping the curving railing at the edge of the steep fifty foot drop into crystal blue waters. Lance leans over, looking down to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending two glassy sheets of water up into the air and creating a bubbling wake behind them. They are invulnerable, towering above the sea, nothing ahead of them but ocean in every direction. 

“Look! Down there! Sharks!” Hunk cries fearfully, pointing down into the water. Lance peers down, the wind tousling his hair and the salt of the sea kissing his tongue. 

“Those are dolphins, meathead,” Pidge teases, reaching up and scruffing Hunk’s hair playfully. Sure enough, one, then two and three and four dolphins leap out of the water, dancing ahead of the juggernaut. 

Pidge looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sunsparkles. “I an see the Statue of Liberty already!” she announces. “It’s extremely small, of course.”

“I wonder what the underbelly of this thing looks like,” Hunk murmurs, gazing up at the smokestacks belching thick black clouds into the trail behind them. 

“Oh my god, would you stop being an engineering nerd for ten seconds?” Lance groans, leaning further over the railing and stepping up onto one of the rungs, his body teetering dangerously over the edge. “Look at us! Wind in our hair, sea in our eyes, sun on our faces, flying at a billion knots over a beautiful blue sea. This is the kinda adventure you read about in books! Let’s be protagonists for a while!” 

“Who’re you callin’  _ nerd,  _ Mr. Adventure Books,” Hunk scowls, but Lance just laughs him off. He tilts his head back and releases his arms from the rails, holding them out as if to embrace the wonderful world ahead of him. 

“I’m the king of the world!” he howls jubilantly. Beside him, Pidge whoops and leaps onto a crate, tap dancing in rudimentary steps she’d picked up on one of their many drunken trips through Italy. Hunk laughs and unties the headband around his hair, letting it flow in all its frizzy Samoan glory. Lance’s grin is absolutely manic. 


End file.
